Food, Glorious, Food: Feasts to Welcome Fall
On September 11 in Hudson and Great Barrington; September 12 in Litchfield
How sublime are the pig roasts that Jeremy Stanton of Fire Roasted Catering stages? They get rave reviews not only from locavores, carnivores and food-world poo-bahs like Ruch Reichl (who hired him to prepare her husband’s 70th birthday dinner earlier this summer) but also from vegans, who swoon over the way he grills vegetables in the style of the South American chef Francis Mallmann. The Seventh Annual North Plain Farm Pig Roast—a once-a-year collaboration between Jeremy and his brothers Sean (a farmer and chairman of Great Barrington’s Board of Selectman and Peter who runs the not-for-profit Nutrition Center—is a festive, affordable way to sample the best locally raised meat and vegetables in a down-home community setting. “It gets bigger and better every year, and people show up and have a great time even when it rains,” says Sean Stanton, who raises animals at North Plain and Blue Hill Farms, which supply New York City’s acclaimed Blue Hill restaurant. “This year we have two one-hundred pound pigs, a veal calf and a bunch of chickens. And I’ll be providing the tomatoes, too.” Other farms contributing vegetables and cheese to the feast include Laura Meister‘s Farm Girl Farm, Foggy River Farm, Indian Line Farm, Rawson Brook Farm and Taft Farm.
7th Annual North Plain Farm Pig Roast
Great Barrington, MA
Saturday, September 11
Drinks at 4 p.m.; Meal begins at 5 p.m.
$35 for adults; children under 16 pay their age.
Last year, the Warren Street merchants formed the BeLo 3rd group to promote their often overlooked strip of Hudson’s shopping corridor. They have invited restaurants, food shops and caterers from upper Warren Street to join them at the Second Annual Taste of Hudson food festival. Some 20 tables will be set up under a big tent on the 200 block of Warren Street and fairgoers can purchase BeLo Bucks ($1 each) to purchase food from the various vendors including RI favorites such as DA/BA, Olde Hudson, (p.m.) Wine Bar, and Verdigris Tea. But the new BBQ joint in town is expected to be a major presence. “American Glory will probably steal the show,” says Juliette Crill, who is helping to organize the event.
Taste of Hudson
Warren Street, Hudson, NY
Saturday, September 11
11 a.m. - 2 p.m.
In the RI region, when the tickets cost $150 you expect an extravaganza, which is exactly what the Connecticut Farmland Trust has been dishing up every fall for a decade. The 10th anniversary Celebration of Connecticut Farms features all Connecticut-grown food prepared by the state’s finest chefs, vinters and farm artisans. In addition to the 30 participating restaurants, there will be farm tours, live music and paintings by the Connecticut Plein Air Painters Society. The event helps fund the Connecticut Farmland Trust, the state’s only private, non-profit state-wide agricultural land trust dedicated to conserving Connecticut’s working lands by aquiring agricultural conservation easements and providing technical assistance to land trusts, municipalities, and state agencies.
Tickets will not be sold at the door, but can be purchased up until the afternoon of Saturday, September 11 by clicking here.
10th Anniversary Celebration of Connecticut Farms
Sunday, September 12
Laurel Ridge Farm, Litchfield, CT
noon - 4:30 p.m.
And . . . Save the Date: September 20
Berkshire Grown’s 12th Annual Harvest Supper
Eastover Resort, Lenox, MA
6:30 - 8:30 p.m.
This event always sells out, so buy tickets ($65) early.
Related Posts:
Berkshire Grown’s 11th Annual Harvest Supper (September 21, 2009)
Berkshire Grown’s Harvest Supper (September 17, 2008)
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 09/07/10 at 06:20 PM • Permalink
In Poughkeepsie, Crave Hits the Spot
By Kathryn Matthews
There’s delicious new incentive to stroll Walkway Over the Hudson and work up an appetite: Crave.
Last December, when chef-owner Ed Kowalski opened Crave, a stylish contemporary American restaurant in Poughkeepsie, he was deemed a “genius” for his choice of location—on Washington Street—right beneath the entrance to Walkway Over the Hudson.
This wasn’t the back-slapping reaction that Kowlaski, 38, a Culinary Institute of America alumnus, got five years ago when he opened Lola’s, his off-premise catering company and café, in the space adjacent to Crave.
“Back in 2005, the same people, who are now congratulating me, told me that I was crazy opening Lola’s in this neighborhood,” he said with a chuckle, adding, “How’s that for irony?!” Now that a newly installed stairway, which opened two weeks ago, descends directly from the Walkway entrance to Crave, Kowalski really does deserve the last laugh.
In any case, Kowalski has no quibbles with the fate the restaurant gods have bestowed upon him. He is thrilled to have finally realized his lifelong dream: owning a restaurant (with his wife, Laurie Kowalski), that is “romantic, intimate—and American at heart”.
Crave boasts not just one, but three CIA-trained chefs: Kowalski (center), 38, executive chef Catherine Williams, 29, and sous chef Craig Capano, 25. And good news for hungry Walkway strollers: Crave is now open from 2pm to 10pm on weekends. During the week, however, it serves dinner only, from 4pm to 10pm.
The menu, which changes seasonally and sources locally whenever possible, features updated, pan-American favorites, often with creative, international twists. You might expect the crab cakes, “maple lacquered” salmon, grilled veal rib chop, or filet mignon (P.S.: a heart-friendly eight ounces). But you might not expect Cuban-style pork belly with pear mostarda ($11); Asian-style barbecue-glazed baby octopus, paired with grilled pineapple and baby greens ($10); or sea bass served with spicy, coconut peanut soba noodles and a scallion-radish salad ($25).
The food, décor .and atmosphere embody what Kowalski desires in a dining experience: “With Crave, I wanted to create an intimate, romantic restaurant, serving City-caliber food, where I could take my wife to dinner.”
Alfred Portale’s Gotham Bar & Grill and Danny Meyers’ restaurants were sources of design inspiration. The interior and the façade of the building, which previously housed a rowdy, late night (open until 4 a.m.!) college bar, were completely gutted. The couple hired Darron Andress of FW Interior Design in Wappingers Falls to help transform the once ramshackle space into a cozy 32-seat restaurant, done in warm earth tones. The lighting is soft and subtle, emanating from elegant drum pendant light fixtures that hang from a copper ceiling, and an exposed brick wall, alight in a sea of votive sconces. The enclosed 20-seat patio, adjacent to the Walkway above, offers an al fresco dining option.
After strolling the Walkway one recent balmy summer evening, my husband and I stopped at Crave. The summer menu features two salads, and we ordered both. My starter arugula salad, dressed in a Champagne vinaigrette, was a delightful medley of contrasting textures: peppery arugula, creamy avocado, tangy pink grapefruit and crunchy, candied pistachios ($11). My husband tackled his baby spinach and pickled Asian pear salad, garnished with blue cheese and toasted walnuts, with equal gusto.
Main dishes are well-executed, if a bit hearty for the summer season. The pan-roasted duck (right), toothsomely tender and pink inside, with perfectly crisped skin—comes with a creamy mash of polenta, topped with foie gras and Swiss chard ($28). While tasty, the wild striped bass, served with a too-crunchy ratatouille of summer squash, artichoke hearts, haricots verts and an overabundance of green and black olives, didn’t quite hang together ($25).
On another Friday night, fresh off Metro North (just a five minute drive away), we arrived at 
Crave famished. My husband opted for the pork tenderloin (left). First cooked sous vide (in vacuum-
sealed plastic pouches at low temperatures), then grilled, the pork arrived with a trio of rainbow carrots on a bed of sautéed spinach and a crock of jalapeno and white cheddar grits ($24, left). My Scottish salmon, draped over a lovely ragout of local beans, sweet corn and fingerling potatoes, typically bathes in an andouille cream sauce (made of corn stock, white wine and cream), which I requested on the side. By end meal, hunger was a distant memory.
Much of Crave’s success, from its location to the CIA-trained staff, is intertwined with Lola’s, Kowalski’s first venture.
Despite initial naysayers, Kowalski, who grew up in Poughkeepsie, was comfortable opening Lola’s, then Crave, in a transitional, still rough-around-the-edges neighborhood, off the Main Street drag.
As a teenager during the late 1980s, Kowalski had worked in the same exact two buildings—formerly, an Old World Italian deli and restaurant—that Lola’s and Crave now occupy.
The journey to owning a restaurant in his hometown has been circuitous. It’s taken over a decade for all the right pieces to fall into place. In 1998, when Kowalski graduated from the Culinary Institute of America, he was a 26-year-old father with two young children, aged two and four.
There were job offers, including one from the Marriott Marquis in Manhattan, but Kowalski was reluctant to uproot his young family. “That’s when I decided to plant my roots in the Hudson Valley,” he said.
He worked at the Inn at Wicopee in Hopewell Junction (it has since closed), then switched to catering in 1999, when a friend, then owner of Gourmet to Go in Millbrook, asked him to run the company’s catering division. It was here that he became a mentor to 17-year-old Catherine Williams, another Poughkeepsie native and aspiring chef, eager for restaurant experience that would enhance her application to the CIA.
After his friend sold Gourmet to Go to a new owner in 2005, Kowlaski, who was ready to start his own catering company, conceived Lola.
Despite “the neighborhood”, Lola’s, which serves freshly made sandwiches, panninis, soups and salads, was an instant success. Kowalski, who had originally anticipated running the entire catering and café operation himself, now has a dozen employees at Lola’s.
One of them was Williams. After graduating from the CIA and spending eight years in Virginia, she returned to Poughkeepsie in 2008 and worked with Kowalski at Lola’s, while pondering her next career move. Soon after, the space next to Lola’s became available.
Kowalski’s decision to open Crave was contingent on whether Williams would agree to stay in Poughkeepsie and be his executive chef. The rest, as they say, is history.
Before Lola’s moved into the building, it had sat vacant for seven years. The rent was reasonable, and although Kowalski didn’t own the building, he refurbished it. He did the same with Crave. Little by little, the block is improving. The Walkway (view from it above) has also brought more business into the area. “We joke that the ‘revolution’ started when I opened Lola’s,” he says, “but it’s gratifying to know that, in being here first, I’ve played a role in taking this neighborhood to a better place.”
Crave
129 Washington Street; 845-452-3501
Poughkeepsie, NY 12601
Tue-Friday: 4pm-10pm
Saturday: 2pm-10pm
Sunday: 2pm-9pm
Closed Monday
Kathryn Matthews, Rural Intelligence’s Dutchess County correspondent, is a lifestyles writer based in Red Hook and New York City who frequently writes about travel, health, food and leisure for the New York Times, Town & Country and O Magazine.
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 08/29/10 at 01:44 PM • Permalink
Five Top Chefs, Just Forty Guests, and One Remarkable Setting
Photo by Jane Feldman
To raise funds and heighten public awareness of their mission, the Bannerman Castle Trust is hosting a dinner on Pollepel Island in Fishkill on September 11. Five prominent chefs—Noah Sheetz, of the Governor’s Mansion in Albany; Laura Pensiero of GiGi Market and Trattoria, in Rhinebeck; Bob Turner, who teaches cooking workshops at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck; Jeff Loshinsky, a Hudson-based caterer and personal chef; and Liz Beals, “Chief Jammer” at Beth’s Farm Kitchen in Stuyvesant Falls— have volunteered to produce the dinner from food local farmers and other specialty purveyors in the region will donate. Guests will arrive by boat, then will get a guided tour of the island, after which, everyone will sit down at tables set amongst the remains of Helen Bannerman’s gardens and tuck into what promises to be an amazing five-course meal.
Wonderful as the food will no doubt be, it is the 6.5 acre island itself and, even more to the point, the crumbling structures on it—which most of us have barely glimpsed from a speeding train—that is the real draw. From a seat on the river side of the railway car, suddenly, there it is, out in the river—an uninhabited island with several incongruous castle-like structures rising out of the weeds.
In fact, what we pass on the train is what’s left of Bannerman Castle. Originally, there were seven separate structures spread over the 6.5 acres of what is officially still called Pollepel Island. The most ambitious of these buildings is the enormous arsenal, which was built in the first years of the last century by Francis Bannerman, lV, a Scottish emigre who became a successful Manhattan-based war relics dealer.
In 1900, at the insistence of the NYC authorities, Bannerman had to get his munitions out of town. What safer venue, he reasoned, than an island in the Hudson River? Over the ensuing years, Bannerman, an enthusiastic amateur architect, added six more structures to the island, including a “powder house” that one day in 1920 disappeared without a trace in what, by all accounts, was a spectacular explosion. Oddly, considering his propensity for grandiosity, the summer house Bannerman built for himself and his family, while also castle-like in style, was only 1100 square feet. Modest proportions aside, Bannerman boasted in his company’s catalogues and advertisements that the 3-bedroom “castle” had “every modern convenience.”
“According to his granddaughter-in-law, Jane Campbell Bannerman, who is now 100 years old, ‘Modern conveniences, my foot!’,” says Neil Caplan, a Dutchess County real estate broker (whose aptly named agency is Castle Keep Realty) and innkeeper. Since 1993, Caplan (in the green shirt in the photo above, surrounded by the chefs) has valiantly fought to keep Bannerman Castle and the other structures on the island, which is now part of Hudson Highlands State Park, from collapsing into a pile of rubble and dust. Thanks to donations and matching funds from a New York State Environmental Protection Fund challenge grant, a project is presently underway to stabilize the former Bannerman summer home by restoring its roof, interior floors and walls. Ultimately, if Caplan’s dream of seeing Bannerman Island turned into a proper tourist destnation is ever realized, the house will become the visitors’ center. Meanwhile, for every crenelation Caplan and his cohorts manage to save, two seem to expire. Last winter, two entire walls of the arsenal tower collapsed.
Caplan has all sorts of fundraising schemes planned, many revolving around kayaks, but the future of this incongruous and delightful folly probably rests with finding the right donor, someone who, like Caplan, sees the value in preserving a thing, not because it is of any real historic value, but simply because it is so much fun.
For tickets and more information contact .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
845.831.6346; 845.234.3204
Tickets/$125; seating limited to 40 guests.
Top photo: John Peterson, wearer of many toques, including front-of-the-house-captain for all Jeff Loshinsky-catered events; Noah Sheetz, Neil Caplan, Rebecca Joyner, director of dining services for the Darrow School in New Lebanon; Jeff Loshinsky, and Nicci Cagan, who lights fires or puts them out, as needed.
Photographs of tower ruins by Wes Gottlock
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 08/27/10 at 01:18 PM • Permalink
Our Favorite Pizza: Baba Louie’s Arrives in Pittsfield
Paul Masiero at his computerized, wood-fired pizza oven in Pittsfield
If you were asked to name a restaurant that epitomizes the Rural Intelligence region, there could be no better answer than Baba Louie’s, which opened in Great Barrington more than a decade ago, opened a second location in Hudson, NY, five years ago, and opened its third restaurant in Pittsfield two weeks ago. Serving creative salads and imaginatively topped pizzas on sourdough crusts made by Berkshire Mountain Bakery and cooked to order in wood-fired ovens, Baba Louie’s is deliciously democratic—sophisticated, fresh, real food that’s accessible to all.
Owners Eileen and Paul Masiero (his brothers own Guido’s Fresh Marketplace) have created a family-friendly restaurant where childless adults feel at home, too. 
The new Pittsfield location, which is around the corner from the Beacon Cinema, seems tailor-made for its gentrifying neighborhood. “Pizza and movies go together!” says Paul. And so, too, pizza and kids. Paul is such a devoted family guy that when he installed his fancy, Italian-made, computerized wood-burning oven, he put ceramic handprints of his children right over the opening where he slides the pizzas in and out. And each child has a pizza named after him or her: There’s the Isabella Pizzarella (roasted sweet potatoes, roasted parsnips, caramelized onions, roasted garlic, fresh mozzarella and shaved fennel drizzled with reduced balsamic vinegar and parmesan); Cole’s Creation (fresh mozzarella, red onions, fresh garlic, plum tomatoes topped with organic arugula, feta and balsamic vinaigrette); and the Hannah Joe (fresh mozzarella, ricotta, red onions, shrimp, pineapple, prosciutto, green chili sauce, topped with dried coconut.)
When the Masieros bought Baba Louie’s ten years ago, it was a great concept that was not fulfilling its potential. “We changed the pizza toppings and the salads,” says Paul, and, in fact, many Baba Louie’s fans think the salads such as Dawn’s Delight (gorgonzola, pears, dried cranberries and toasted walnuts served on a bed of mixed greens with balsamic vinaigrette) are as remarkable as the pizzas. But it’s more than the food that made Baba Louie’s take off in Great Barrington when the Masieros took over. “I paid a lot of attention to the service. I was there all the time which made a difference to the customers and to the staff,” says Paul, who followed his brothers to the Berkshires after attending culinary school and apprenticing at the fabled Greenbrier hotel in West Virginia. He admits he was nervous about whether he could duplicate his success in Hudson. “It was a struggle to make it work,” he allows. “It takes a lot of being present, knowing your staff and who you can trust. I now have great managers and chefs in Great Barrington and Hudson so I can be focused here.”
And the Pittsfield operation requires a lot of attention. Since opening two weeks ago, there have been lines out the door. “We’re selling 2,000 pizzas a week,” says Masiero, who took over the cavernous Pittsfield Brew Works space on Depot Street. “We have 120 seats right now, and one day we’ll open up the other room where we can have 80 more.” You can look into the kitchen through a big window in the dining room and watch him make pizzas and stoke the fire. “Sometimes I’m out front and sometimes I’m in the kitchen because I can make the pizzas much faster than someone who has to look up the ingredients each time. I know them by heart. I have been making them for ten years.” Isn’t it added pressure to have the kitchen on display? “I wanted to show off my pizza oven!” he says cheerfully. “And it gives me the right to go into the kitchen and tell the guys to clean up because the customers can see everything.”
Masiero is very focused on his customers’ overall experience. “I have a full liquor license but we only serve wine and beer because this is a family restaurant,” he explains. “I didn’t want to be in the bar business. I didn’t want people ordering shots. If I wanted to own a saloon, I would have.” He attributes Baba Louie’s popularity to his not cutting corners when it comes to ingredients. “My customers are willing to pay more for good food. They are very conscientious about what they eat.” He thinks the new place has the just right look and vibe for downtown Pittsfield. “It came out almost elegant,” he says, chuckling. “It doesn’t look or feel like a pizza joint.”
Baba Louie’s
34 Depot Street, Pittsfield; 413.499. 2400
Lunch Daily: 11:30 a.m. - 3 p.m.
Dinner Daily: 5 p.m. - 10 p.m.
Related posts:
Baba Louie’s Great Barrington
Baba Louie’s Hudson
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 08/26/10 at 07:03 AM • Permalink
Food News: Locavore Hero Award Nominees Announced
Photograph by Sedat Pakay ©2010
Eleven nominees have been announced for the new Victoria A. Simons Locavore Award, a prize established by Ms. Simons just weeks before her death last March following a brief battle with cancer.
“I contacted Vicki and asked, ‘Is there some kind of local legacy you’d like to leave?’, ” says Lael Locke, a philanthropist and Chatham Village Board Trustee, who had known Simons for twenty years. “We kicked some ideas around, and she decided she would like to do something for Columbia County Bounty,” a non-profit that promotes local agriculture by connecting farmers, chefs, and consumers. Simons helped found the organization and was its first executive director.
Fittingly, the winner of the first Victoria A. Simons award of $1,000 will be announced on Monday, September 6—Agriculture Appreciation Day—at the Columbia County Fair, an event produced by the Columbia County Agricultural Society. In 1996, Simons, the longtime editor and co-owner with her husband Tony Jones of The Independent, a newspaper serving Columbia and southern Rennselaer counties, became the first woman ever to serve on the Society’s board. (The couple sold the paper in 2001; it ceased publication last February.)
Despite it’s Columbia County pedigree, the annual award honoring someone in local food production is not limited to those living and/or working within that county. “Vicki was quite adamant about that,” says Locke. This year’s nominees come from Columbia, Dutchess, and Berkshire Counties. One, Josephine Proul (above), Executive Chef of Local 111, a restaurant in Philmont, is cited for her creative exploration and use of local ingredients, and for her tireless enterprise in maintaining a wide network of relationships with local farmers.
The other nominees include:
Carin Quirke deJong, New Lebanon; following closure of her town’s only supermarket this year, she inaugurated the New Lebanon Farmer’s Market—complete with child care and acceptance of food stamps and other vouchers—to make local meat, produce and bread available to everyone. The market also has become a community networking center.
Dutchess County Tourism, Poughkeepsie, for its extensive agri-tourism activities designed to enhance awareness and understanding of local agriculture, while developing new markets for local farmers. Teaming with Metro North, the agency’s Farm Fresh Getaway Package has drawn over 2,300 urban visitors, introducing them to the benefits of locally grown, including a Farm Fresh coloring and activity book for children.
Beth’s Farm Kitchen, Stuyvesant Falls, for using more than 55,000 pounds of local produce for jams, pickles and chutneys in a successful business that has grown over 30 years and currently employs 8 people. Owner Beth Linskey is a long-time vendor at the New York City Greenmarkets and is active in the Slow Food Movement.
Joseph Gilbert, owner of The Berry Farm, Chatham, was a pioneer of the Locavore Movement long before it had a name. For nearly 30-years, he has been a passionate advocate for and provider of local farm products, including his own chemical-free berries and produce. Over the years, his farm store has introduced and championed many other local providers.
Karyn Novakowski, Education Director, Sylvia Center at Katchkie Farm, Kinderhook, has introduced the Locavore Movement to the next generation by inaugurating a Columbia County Healthy Kids section at the 2010 Taste Of Columbia County Bounty annual fundraiser.
Liz Beals, Niverville, (in the red apron) is “head jammer” at Beth’s Farm Kitchen and a notable food volunteer, serving as a Columbia County Bounty board member as well as having done a stint as administrative assistant there. She is nominated for her overall robust commitment to local food, including her successes in persuading more farms to donate fresh fruit and vegetables to local food pantries.
Brian J. Alberg, Executive Chef and Director of Food & Beverage, Red Lion Inn, Stockbridge, demonstrates his passion for farm-to-table with his special “Sustainable Foods Menus” at the Inn’s four restaurants, which result in $400,000 per year in purchases from local farmers and growers. In addition to his tireless advocacy of the Locavore Movement as a chef, he is also notable as an educator through the Railroad Street Youth Project, which introduces kids at risk to the profession of cooking and consequently the benefits of the locavore movement. Alberg is also a partner in a farm that raises heritage-breed pigs.
Shaker Mountain Canning Company, New Lebanon, is a new business that extends the farm market season by offering local food, lightly preserved, year-round with a commitment to 100% “traceability” to individual farms of their “Farm Down the Road-label products.
Marilyn Burch, Stuyvesant, is founder and volunteer manager of the Stuyvesant Farmer’s Market at the historic Stuyvesant Landing Depot since 2006. She is also an organizer of the Hungry Hedgehog Food Coop and is a tireless promoter of the benefits of eating fresher, safer, tastier local produce.
Todd Erling, Livingston, Executive Director of Hudson Valley AgriBusiness Development Corporation, is extending the Columbia County Bounty banner to sister undertakings in Dutchess, Orange and Ulster counties, a first step in creating a cooperative Hudson Valley Bounty organization.
Contributions to the Victoria A. Simons Locavore Award Fund can be made c/o Hudson River Bank & Trust Foundation, P.O. Box 1189, Hudson, NY 12534.
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 08/22/10 at 10:18 AM • Permalink
The Sublime Taste of Columbia County Bounty
Since the food one gets at the Columbia County Fairgrounds during the county fair has the Ridiculous category well covered (if it can’t be deep fried, forget it), the sophisticated locavore fare that will comprise next Tuesday’s gala Columbia County Bounty dinner at that same charming venue has Sublime all to itself. As every Food Network watcher knows, chefs are a competitive bunch, particularly when they know their fellow chefs are watching. Hence, for the several dozen participating in this year’s event, things may be a little tense. For the rest of us? We get to sit back, relax, and enjoy the fruits (as well as the vegetables, meats, dairy products, baked goods—in short, the bounty) of this incredible place we call home.
The dinner, a fundraiser for Columbia County Bounty to which the general public is invited, features “tastes” of over 40 different offerings, including several from kids cooking contingents. The chefs will mingle, meet and greet. The point is to get the word out about the county’s great agrarian economy and to introduce the public to the players and products from our farms, dairies, wineries, orchards, bakeries, and restaurants.
The Taste of Columbia County Bounty
Fairhouse at the Columbia County Fairgrounds
Route 66
Chatham, NY
August 2; 5 - 8 p.m.
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 07/28/10 at 12:28 PM • Permalink
A Farm Fresh Ice Cream Parlour in Pine Plains
You scream, I scream, we all scream for . . . Osofsky? When it comes to ice cream in Pine Plains, it’s all in the family: Nina Osofsky (left) whose husband and father-in-law—Peter and Rick Osofsky—work at family-owned Ronnybrook Farm Dairy, opened an old fashioned, fresh-smelling ice cream parlour called The Scoop Creamery on Route 199 a few weeks ago. It features hand-packed Ronnybrook ice cream (such as Toasted Hazelnut Crunch, Ginger Crème Brûlée, Columbia County Coffee) which is made on the farm a few miles away in Ancramdale. “This is as local as it gets!” says Nina.
Ironically, city people seem to know Ronnybrook better than many locals. “New Yorkers and weekenders know Ronnybrook from the Greemarkets and love that the milk comes in glass bottles with the cream on top,” she says. “Some people mistakenly think it’s a huge company like Horizon Organic, but it’s not that big. Everything is made in small batches.”
A tea expert by training who had business dealings with Harney Tea in Millerton and who worked for Sebastian Beckwith’s In Pursuit of Tea company in Cornwall, she has already experimented with making tea-flavored soft-serve ice cream. “I also make frozen yogurt using the Ronnybrook Drinkable Yogurts.” She is also selling cakes, tarts and pies by local baker Jennifer Blackburn of Telu Confections. “There was no place to buy a nice cake around here,” she says. Sundaes and banana splits come topped with freshly made Ronnybrook whipped cream, but the most popular items right now seems to be the old-fashioned floats such as the Purple Cow (vanilla ice cream with grape soda) and the extra thick milkshakes.
Nina’s goal is to make her ice-cream shop a hangout where everyone in town will feel welcome, especially families with young children. “The need for someplace like this came to me when i had my daughter fourteen months ago,” she says, noting that her brother-in-law Charlie Norman owns the next door Mountain Cow Cafe so there is synergy between the two eateries. Though Nina is selling high end ice cream, she has deliberately priced her cones to compete with the Stewart’s Shops convenience store in town (which happens to have a friendly staff that hand-scoops ice cream, too.) “A kiddie cone here is just $1.25, and it’s not that small, and a regular cone is $2.50,” she says. “The locals love it, and they’re making coming here after dinner a ritual. It’s becoming a happening place.”
The Scoop Creamery
2981 Church Street, Pine Plains; 508.277.1465
Monday - Thursday 1 p.m. 8 p.m.
Friday - Sunday 11 a.m. - 8 p.m.
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 07/21/10 at 11:35 AM • Permalink
Gypsy Joynt: A Boho Family Restaurant in Great Barrington
Fiona Breslin, a student at the New School University, reports from Great Barrington:
“We’re not gypsies,” says Caitlyn Stafford, 24, whose family owns the six-month-old Gypsy Joynt on Route 7. “We’re here to stay.” The name Gypsy Joynt was inspired by her family’s move last fall from Goldsboro, North Carolina, to the Berkshires, when Keith and Lori Weller and their five children—Caitlyn, Merry Milling, 22, Jordan, 20, Haley, 17, and Braedan, 14—their two grandchildren, two sons-in-law, and a sister-in-law decided to relocate their established restaurant, Ya’lls Joynt. Caitlyn chose the Berkshires, where the family had come on vacations. “Mom said to everybody, if one person doesn’t want to move than we don’t,” recalls Haley. “In November, we packed up and pulled up here.” In January they opened Gypsy Joynt.
The family works as a team, managing the restaurant side-by-side. “Some people don’t understand family working together,” says Caitlyn. “For us, it’s not just a job— it’s a way of life.” Decorated with collaged rock and roll posters, Christmas lights, piñatas, a sticker advocating nude beaches, a mural portrait resembling Keith, a pirate flag, and an American flag, Gypsy Joynt has humor and individuality. To the left of the entrance, there’s a large, elevated, stage for music. To the right, family photos hang on a purple wall. It’s reminiscent of a long ago time in the Berkshires, evoking the spirit of flower power. But “this idea didn’t suit Goldsboro,” says Merry, who, like her parents and siblings, speaks tersely. “It was good timing for a change,” says Lori.
Most every dish served is organic, prepared from scratch, and dreamt up in the Gypsy kitchen, where only four people can work together at a time. The delectable menu includes oven-baked pizzas on fresh dough, rich pastas like ziti or lasagna with homemade sauce, salads with grilled vegetables and homemade dressings like a raspberry vinaigrette. There’s an oven-baked burger (named the Mort Rainey, after a Johnny Depp character), with mushroom, melted provolone, and homemade pesto that is highly recommended. “We don’t get complaints often,” says Haley with humility and honesty.
Lori Weller sets the pace for the family. “My wife is a tremendous cook, always has been,” says Keith. “She’s Gypsy Joynt.” Lori grew up in Galveston Island, Texas, and learned to cook from her own mother and grandmother who also ran restaurants. She taught her children to cook, passing the proficiency on to them. “So we would all be able to eat well outside the house,” says Haley. Still, the children have chosen to remain together. “She’s the creativity,” says Keith. And then Laurie adds: “The children expound on it.”
Haley describes the bond among her family to be like that of a pack of wolves. And like a tribe, they are all tattooed. The word “family” is inked on their forearms in Hebrew, French, English, and Hawaiian. Each member of the family has it in a different language. Braedan will have “family” tattooed in Gaelic when he gets a little older. “Ink in and blood out,” they say.
And music is as integral to Gypsy Joynt as food. Jordan, a musician and composer, books the Wednesday Open Mic Night and Friday night performances. “We have some pretty big acts coming in,” he says, citing groups like Tao Seegar Band, Guy Davis, and The SweetBack Sisters. In July, they will start having Saturday night shows, too. My brother picks who’s good,” says Haley, with an unalterable trust in him. “He’s the music man.”
On a recent Saturday afternoon, the restaurant was alive: a young woman sat having lunch with her daughter, two women met for a midday bite, and a party of four conversed in the corner. People rotated in and out, picking up pizzas to go. “We’re much more received here,” says Merry. While tourist season has been good for business, relationships with locals and regulars are “first and foremost,” says Keith. For care of the community and of each other, they put love and passion into their cooking, “We eat here,” he says.
Gypsy Joynt
398 Stockbridge Road, Great Barrington; 413.664.8811
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 06/23/10 at 11:42 AM • Permalink
Hudson Caterer Marianna Vadukul to Appear on Bobby Flay
“I met Nitin on his first day in New York,” says Marianna Vadukul, of her husband, the photographer Nitin Vadukul. At the time, Marianna, the daughter of a Venezuelan diplomat, had not long been in the States herself. In due course, the couple married, and Marianna found herself taking instruction from Nitin’s mother and sister in the art of being a good Indian wife. “Food is an important part of their culture,” she says. So they honored her with a gift, Nitin’s grandmother’s spices, and taught her how to cook with them.
Already an avid cook, she proved to be an apt pupil. These days, from her Hudson-based Indian delivery/catering kitchen, Saffron at Hudson, Marianna turns out steaming tikkas and vindaloos for, among others, the Chatham Real Food Coop, where they are available to eat in or take out. Marianna’s Indian food, while authentic tasting, strays from some of the traditional ingredients and techniques her in-laws taught her. “I’m more likely to bake than fry, and I’ll often substitute a healthier ingredient—olive oil or yogurt—for a less healthy one, such as ghee,” she says, referring to the long-simmered, strained liquid butter that is a staple of Indian cuisine. “Moving up to the Hudson Valley and being surrounded by so many local farmers has also enriched my food,” she says, “pushing it in a much more natural way.”
Several months ago, Marianna went to New York City to audition for the Food Network. “They told me they were doing a whole series on new, ethnic chefs,” she says. Not surprisingly, the Venezuelan beauty passed muster, “so they came to Hudson and tried my food,” she says. Thus convinced, when it came to actually shoot the show, the folks at the network sent in the big guns. “Suddenly Bobby Flay came through the door, and I felt this energy, as if it were coming through the floor,” she says. “I was totally surprised.”
Thirty million people watch his Food Network show, “Throwdown with Bobby Flay.” Unfortunately, next week, when her episode airs for the first time, Marianna will not be one of them. Presently in Portugal for her sister’s wedding, she is planning to hold an event at the Chatham Real Food Coop sometime in August [when her plans firm, Rural Intelligence will report them]. “I’ll play the tape of the show, then I’ll do a demo,” she says. And then, just as her mother- and sister-in-law did for her, “I’ll give everyone a gift of Indian spices.”
Marianna Vadukul on Throwdown with Bobby Flay
June 23; 9 p.m.
Jun 24; Noon
July 3, 2010, 7 p.m.
Saffron at Hudson
Hudson, NY
The Chatham Real Food Coop
Route 203, just west of Route 66
Chatham, NY
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 06/15/10 at 09:19 AM • Permalink
Mezze Bistro + Bar Makes Its Move in Williamstown
Photographs by Jason Houston
When Nancy Thomas opened Mezze fourteen years ago on Water Street, she was behind the stove. Her restaurant had 50 seats and served mostly mezze—small plates of exoctically spiced food inspired by her Moroccan mother. It quickly became the hangout for academics and the dot.com crowd (led by Bo Peabody of Tripod.com) that was working and partying hard in Williamstown. Eventually, she moved the restaurant up the street, expanded to 100 seats, partnered with Peabody, and refocused the menu by hiring chefs who were as excited as she was about local farm-to-table cuisine. She then opened Café Latino at MASS MoCA (now closed) and Allium in Great Barrington while Mezze and its catering division became as integral to the community as The Clark, MASS MoCA, and Williamstown Theatre Festival.
Now, Thomas is wearing high heels and dresses at Mezze’s new, airy home just south of town on Cold Spring Road (aka Route 7.) “My bankers said I should really own my locations,” says Thomas, an Oklahoma native, who purchased the old Jae’s Inn (previously Le Jardin) at auction. “I really wasn’t expecting to get it, but it allowed us to own our catering kitchen, too, which really made sense though we were sad to leave MASS MoCA [where her catering operation as based].” Located in a park-like setting next door to Sheep Hill (50 acres proteced by the Williamstown Rual Lands Foundation), Mezze is surrounded by a newly planted native, edible landscape that will develop over three to five years. “I am not planning to farm here,” she says. “But I am trying to tell my story in a new way and express a real connection to the land.”
As a farm-to-table advocate, she believes in supporting local farmers and celebrating native foods. “My chef, Joji Sumi, goes to Mighty Food Farm almost every day,” says Thomas, whose current menu credits Cricket Creek Farm, Peace Valley Farm, Berle Farm, Northeast Family Farms. Although most of these farms are within 15 minutes of the restaurant, she believes that the Berkshires is best suited to raising animals, and that the adjacent Hudson and Pioneer Valleys can grow vegetables more efficiently on a larger scale. “Part of my outreach to young talent is to explain what incredible animals people are raising here,” she says. “Young chefs like to butcher their own meat and make charcuterie.” She loves Sumi’s “American Charcuterie Plate” ($10) that pays homage to his midwestern roots by remaking middlebrow classics with local ingredients: beef jerky, summer sausage, and a walnut cheese ball that is a riff on a women’s magazine favorite from the 1960s. But most of the menu is totally contemporary: local radishes served with minted English pea butter ($7), warm asparagus salad with morels & Mighty Food Farm egg ($12), fried organic tofu with mushroom miso broth and Mighty Food Farm bok choy ($12); fettucine with Cricket Creek Farm pork & veal Bologonese ($21); grilled bistro steak with mizuna & arugula salad ($20).
The new Mezze, which opened to the public on June 6, has a lovely graciousness. “I think I have gotten more feminine in my taste,” says Thomas, who had the walls painted a stylish pale gray and the ceiling a vibrant peacock blue. “I did funky things like have all the built ins painted a hot-pink beet color, and used 1960s chairs from the old Taconic Restaurant. I recycled the marble tops from the sushi bar that was here before and brought the bar that I saved from Verdura where Allium is now. I had been storing it in a barn. And the outdoor furniture on the deck is recycled from Café Latino. I wanted this restaurant to have a sense of our history.” The bar, which stays open most nights until 1 a.m., is designed for dining earlier in the evening. “We have a lot of mature diners who want to eat casually at the bar,” she says. “I always have lamps on the bar. They make it cozy.”
Although she’s a very hand’s on boss, she defers to North Adams gallery owner Kurt Kolok about what contemporary art to show on her walls. “I love working with Kurt,” she says. “This is such a serious art community with so many scholars. I could never choose art myself.” There are guest rooms upstairs but she hasn’t yet decided what to do with them. “I don’t want to be an innkeeper,” she says. “But I wouldn’t mind having chefs and farmers spend the night.”
Mezze
777 Cold Spring Road, Williamstown; 413.458.0123
Sunday & Monday 5 - 9 p.m.
Tuesday - Thursday 5 - 10 p.m.
Friday & Saturday 5 - 11 p.m. (summer)
Bar open most nights until 1 a.m.
